Cross-Racial Adoption

Denice Kelly
Whitman College

Joey is a 10-year-old boy. He's into video games, loves baseball, goes to school,
pretty much what all boys his age are doing. Unlike other boys, though, Joey
has no one with whom to share the special moments of his life. For years a Latino
couple has tried to adopt Joey, to give him the family he's always dreamed of.
They have worked through all the paperwork, have saved up enough money, but
because Joey is black, his social worker believes he would need a black family
and has heavily fought the adoption. Joey still remains parentless, facing everyday
without the warmth and love a parent can provide.

Today, America is ignoring the cries of orphaned children across the country.
On July 27, 1999 the Boston Herald suggests that love and care have become secondary
priorities in the child welfare system, second to race. To further analyze this
problem we must first discuss the fear of multi-racial families in the U.S.,
and how it is keeping children parentless. Second, we will probe the cause of
this fear and how it has permeated the minds of people everywhere. And third,
we will discuss some solutions and analyze the amazing impact all of us can
have in combating this terrible problem. First, let's examine this unique mindset
that is keeping children parentless.

Law and Psychology Review in spring of 1996 documented the case of a Pennsylvania
Supreme Court decision that allowed a 10-year-old African American boy, Shane,
to be pulled from the white foster family that he had spent the majority of
his life with, because he was black. The court even admitted, "Shane had
already formed a strong psychological attachment to his foster parents".
Yet they dismissed this attachment and yanked him out of this loving home. The
Atlanta Journal and Constitution on June 20, 1999 suggests that segregation
principles when determining families are becoming commonplace, where minority
children are taken against their will from their loving homes because of skin
color. The child welfare system has become polluted with discriminatory ideals
of what a family should "look" like and, as always it's the children
who suffer the most.

This suffering is described in two ways, first, how the child welfare system
has become a nightmare for minorities, and second, how social workers and the
judicial system have reinforced the belief of same-race homes.

Currently, the child welfare system encompasses over 500,000 children across
the nation. According to the Forum on Adoption Issues in April of 1998, there
has been a 70% increase in children in foster care since 1984, meaning more
children enter the child welfare system than leave every year. Almost 60% or
300,000 are minority children. Since 1972, however, the number of transracial
adoptions has dwindled to less than 1,000, according to the National Transracial
Adoptive Families Population Survey. This means hundreds of thousands of minority
children still wait for a home. In fact, the wait for black children to be adopted
is twice that of Caucasian children, almost five years. As you can see, the
simple ideal that children belong in same-race homes has drastically affected
the lives of minority children.

Many social workers are so adamant in their belief that race is extremely important
in adoptive families that they have battled and have unfortunately won in the
courts. The Chicago Sun-Times on March 10, 1999 illustrates the case of Baby
T a 3-year old African-American baby who the Burkes, a Caucasian couple wanted
to adopt. The reason for denying the adoption and returning the child to his
mother, was that he needed a "culture unique to his race". The mother,
incidentally, left her son when he was only 8 days old and has only recently
kicked her 17-year cocaine habit. The message this court case stated to the
public is that transracial adoption should be avoided at all costs. Race then
becomes more important than the love and care a stable family can provide for
a child.

Currently, there two main causes of this problem, the fears of the National
Association of Black Social workers, or NABSW and the past discriminatory census
procedures. In 1972, the NABSW issued a position paper against transracial adoption.
It reads "Black children belong physically, psychologically, and culturally
in Black families." From the beginning to end, the statement enforces the
ideal that the color of your skin somehow determines your moral, physical, and
psychological growth as a person They also believe that transracial adoption
causes black children to lose their cultural background because they won't have
sufficient black role models. These fears grew to enormous heights and have
become the direct cause of negative attitudes towards transracial adoption.

According to the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the NABSW's position
paper prompted state adoption laws for race matching. California was the main
leader in adopting these sorts of policies that required state agencies to spend
90 days trying to match children ethnically before allowing transcultural placement.
This means that hundreds of thousands of children are denied loving homes. Even
Social Work, a highly respected magazine for social workers states that they
openly support same-race adoptions based merely on the opinions of the NABSW.
This lack of support for transracial families from both social workers and the
courts leads to the belief that transracial families don't work because of lack
of a homogenous skin color.

We look to the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law review for another cause
of this unfounded fear towards multi racial families, which pinpoints the fact
that for years the U.S. has defined itself as white and non-white, through different
forms such as the US Census. In the past, the census allowed people to count
only one racial background According to the October 10th issue of the Atlanta
Journal and Constitution the U.S. Census has repeatedly undercounted minorities
because of this and has never acknowledged multiracial backgrounds. This uncontested
disregard of multiracial persons supported by the government has merely perpetuated
the stigma associated with multi-racial families.

However, the idea that multi-racial families will somehow damage the child's
cultural identity is completely unfounded. Numerous studies have proven this
concept false, such as the study conducted by Rita Simon of America University
and Howard Altstein of the University of Maryland. They composed a longitudinal
study that spanned 20 years in which they interviewed the adopted children.
They found that even at the young age of 4 the adopted children could correctly
identify their race, and were also comfortably aware of their racial identity.

Fear of multi-racial families is a discriminatory emotion that dominates the
minds of social workers and now our judicial system. For a solution we look
to enforcing legislative laws against race matching and taking a stand in an
innovative new census.

According to the April 14th issue of the Christian Science Monitor, groups such
as the New York State Citizen's Coalition for Children are currently working
on convincing the US department of Health and Human Services to act when state
policies clearly violate the Multi Ethnic Placement Act or MEPA. The Department
of Health and Human Services must send a clearer signal that there will be a
withholding of federal funds from state's that have adopted race-matching policies.
By joining these advocacy groups and raising our voices collectively we can
convince the US department of Health and Human Services to take a firmer stance
against race matching.

Another way to spread the message of diversity is through this year's new Census,
according to the Seattle Times August 17th. . With 63 possible combinations
of race anyone in America can now claim what they feel is part of their culture,
giving multiracial persons the long awaited opportunity to include themselves
as unique citizens in America. Many minority advocacy groups such as the NAACP,
Black Civil Liberties Union, and the Mexican-American League according to the
October 10th issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, feel America is not ready
to face this kind of diversity, and have launched campaigns urging America to
check only one racial category, to yet again limit the ability of multiracial
persons to identify themselves in our society.

If we can't even allow multiracial families to acknowledge their existence to
America, how are we going convince social workers and the judicial system that
race should never be a factor in deciding where a child goes? That is why when
we receive the Census on April 1rst it is our job to help America face their
fear, by checking as many boxes that apply to you. By acknowledging the diversity
we can then start to alleviate the racism rampant in the child welfare system.

For more information about transracial adoption go to www.multiracial.com, with
links to different organizations such as Adopt-Interracial Families by Adoption,
the Transracial-Adoption group, and the North Atlantic Council on Adoptable
children that have very useful information about how you can become involved
in the fight against discrimination in the child welfare system.

Today we have discussed the terrible problems that have permeated the child
welfare system. Beginning with the NABSW's position paper this idea has spread
throughout the country, perpetuated by the U.S. census, keeping kids from being
adopted. But there is a way for you and I to fight these ludicrous ideas of
segregation in families, by learning more about this issue and speaking out
against race-matching.

Joey is still black. He still loves baseball, still loves video games, and he
still wants to a family. But fear is holding him back and denying him a right
all children should have. Let's give these children the chance for a family
whether it is black or white.